The University of Hartford’s Drama Club Dramatis Personae, who recently put on this year’s annual production of The Vagina Monologues, is almost ready to share their newest project, an original play written and directed by UHart student Ren Elshaug. Set to premiere in just a few days, the story follows two siblings of varied ages as they venture into the marsh like they used to as kids in a last-ditch effort to reconnect with each other, only to find out that the stories they heard from their father as kids about spirits in the marsh were true. At the core of the play is the relationship between these two siblings, and their development throughout the course of the play.
When asked what inspired the play, the director, Ren, spoke about their experiences as a kid exploring mazes cut into the marsh around their house. “We would see cranes and lynxes and muskrats and all these animals you don’t really get to see, just, in your day-to-day, and then you’d pop out four hours later on a different end of the marsh feeling like it was only ten minutes. It was a really mystical feeling of what became synonymous with childhood.” They talked about how they felt as a kid and how a place like that can be important for development. “I wanted to be able to take all of those aspects of childhood and mysticism and wonder into something where I was able to show an audience that sort of childlike wonder again, especially since we’re all college students. We don’t really have a lot of that wonder and joy anymore and I wanted to do something that would help bring that back for people.”
Production for Stories From The Marsh is on a tight schedule, with only so much time left in the semester after Dramatis Personae’s first show of the semester. “We really don’t have a lot of time for stuff like memorization and set production, so it kind of feels like the entire month and two weeks that we have is tech week. There’s no clocking out.” They also mention that working around the schedules of full-time students has proven to be challenging and that most of the people working on the play are not theater majors. “It has to be a lot more of a
passion project for a lot of people, and that’s really difficult to work around when you know that it’s not a priority for anybody when school is.” Despite having such a limited amount of time to prepare, it seems like things are going very well. “It’s going great”, says Ren. “A lot of the cast are more memorized than they realize. It’s just really coming together and taking on a life of its own.”
If you are looking for more information, the Dramatis Personae Instagram has links to the club website and general information on productions.
